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History Lesson – Friday Fictioneers

Here is this week’s entry into the weekly challenge brought to us by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Here are the rules: Use the photo as inspiration, write a hundred(ish) words – and share! Here goes my offering for this week – and I welcome your comments again!

– History Lesson –

“Is this it, Grandad?”
“Yes, Tommy, this is it. We climbed up to the roof with buckets of water and bags of sand, and waited.”
“For the, the –“
“The Luftwaffe, that’s right.”
“But why did they want to firebomb the church? It’s not very important!”
“Ah, well. There was a big factory next door. That’s what they were after.”
“So, did they sometimes make a mistake?”
“Yes, so we had to stop the church burning down.”
“But why, Grandad?”
“Well, me and your Grandma wouldn’t have been able to get married here. Where would we be then?”
“And she wouldn’t have been buried here either, Grandad!”
“No, lad. Shall we take her these flowers, then?”

Thank you. Yes, particularly the major towns and cities, places where there were important railway line junctions and harbours, and as I mentioned in this post, where important industrial sites were based. London, Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool and the south coast ports such as Portsmouth and Southampton were particularly hard hit. My grandad was in a reserved occupation but took his turn sweeping incendiary devices off the top of his factory and the local church.

Ah, that was a very sweet story. I just finished reading Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life, and, although this isn’t what the book is really about, it was one of the best evocations of wartime England I have ever read… Your story fit right in, a lot of death, and a lot of youth…and often a lot of dead youths.

Now that’s a book that sounds like I should add it to my very long to read list. I have a bit of an addiction to novels set in that period. I’m glad my little slice of life fitted in with your mood. Thank you for popping in!